DemonSlayer

There is a significant difference: The HBB bezel is solid ceramic. Most of the watches that advertise themselves as having ceramic cases are actually stainless steel with a ceramic coating (similar to PVD).

I'm not saying that the cost of the HBB bezels is justified, only that it requires a substantially different process that the typical "ceramic case".

Damn, I didn't know they use ceramic coating over steel

I was actually referring to the J12 full ceramic reps. Surely they have more ceramic in them than a bezel and some of them cost less than the HBB ceramic bezel.

Watchmark, I think you misunderstood my post, but English isn't your first language so it's completely understandable What I was merely saying is that dealers here on RWG are not dealing directly with the factories, but either purchasing from people such as yourself (a market retailer) or wholesalers.

I would also like to thank you for offering better and more importantly FAIRER pricing on the HBB's.

The more dealers we get on board, the more competition there is. The more competition there is the more prices will go down

Seriously though I think it's a shame that other sellers in Guangzhou are not selling here, they might offer us more realistic pricing (as watchmark is doing with his HBB's).

[EDIT TO ADD] - In regards to the topic title, most if not all the dealers on this board can't ask the factories to do anything as they're very likely dealing with wholesalers and even retailers who sell in the markets. Those are the people we need to be speaking too.

Sure, but... aren't the gens overpriced too...

More seriously, I agree with you regarding the HBB pricing, but as you may know, there are more reasonnably priced versions, although that is not the point in this topic.

I would reformulate my answer as follows : for the price of a gen, I prefer several good reps. Again, this is only my opinion, and I respect of course those who would choose the opposite way.

Oh I agree with you, gens are absolutely overpriced. I like reps too thats why I buy them BUT the HBB's are ridiculously overpriced that it's no longer a joke, they're rip-offs in my opinion but we do seem to have money-splashers here who aren't put off by the pricing. Maybe if they knew what they actually sell for in China, they might feel they overpaid..

This is basically what I said in the HBB movement and price theread HERE

I seriously doubt the dealers on this board are dealing directly with the factories, that requires huge MOQ as Ztech just pointed out above.

Imagine what would happen if some of the guangzhou watch market sellers heard about these boards and signed on as dealers. We would have price wars which would hopefully start to bring prices down to what they should be.

Ceramic isn't as expensive as one might think after the hugely inflated prices of the HBB. How can a ceramic bezel cost the same or more than a watch that is made out of mostly ceramics?

They may be well replicated but that shouldn't justify their crazy price tags. I bet there are sellers in China selling HBB's to the Chinese population at $100 or less, absolutely no way over $200.

I thought that was what I said?

Factory sets price, dealer adds mark up, just it seems this dealer is adding less mark up...

The dealers aren't buying them from the factories. Factories have high MOQ and so you need buying power to buy from them. Factories won't sell one watch at a time, thats a FACT, they only deal with big players (unless your best friends with the factory owner). Factories sell to wholesalers who purchase the reps in high numbers, and the wholesalers in turn sell to retailers who set up market stalls such as the kind you find in the Guangzhou watch market.

The dealers here are either:

1) Purchasing the reps from the market sellers, much like we would at any local market and getting them at whatever the true cost is in China (which to us is very cheap). However we couldn't get them at those prices because we're Westerners and we'll get overcharged. They then slap on their mark-up and sell via their website.

2) They're big enough to deal with the wholesalers directly, who also command MOQ's, so they're able to get them even cheaper than the already cheap prices the market vendors sell for.

Factory owners don't make their money via high mark-ups per watch, they make their money on volume. The largest factories are probably selling thousands a week (and it could be even more) so they don't have time to deal with people like us who are looking for the highest quality and close-to-gen reps. This is where the board dealers coming in, they learn from us what our demands are, and they sell reps to us that try their best to meet our demands, but that kind of fussiness costs us Thats the reason why they notify us whenever they change URL or any other changes, it's because we do indeed make up a large part of their client base. People like us are the only ones they can sell a HBB Ceramic bezel for $1000+, if they tried that with some in China they'll get the middle finger..

Definitely go for the gen. Why would you pay an insane price for the HBB with a ceramic bezel which is only worth about $100 in China (I bet it's even less) when you can own a genuine timepiece that actually has some value to it.

I know for a fact it's available with a PVD bezel. You can ask him to track it down or he might even upload it later.

Thank you Stilty and Chris.

I should mention that communications with Chris have been excellent and he's been very helpful. I am in no way slating him for this, as things can happen that are sometimes beyond someones control.

I thought perhaps it was an easy repair/adjustment to get the DW issue sorted, but as already mentioned I have no experience of working on automatics, I don't have any tools and the 3 Quartz watches I've opened up to experiment on are all ruined

I recently bought a YM Noob from a dealer here. Everything about the watch was perfect apart from an issue with the date. It does not roll forward at 12:00, instead a *CLICK* can be heard. However when I pull the crown out at the date-setting position and turn the crown it changes properly.

I know that the datewheel was swapped out, is it anything to do with the datewheel not being installed properly? Is it an easy fix, as I have no tools to do any type of work and wouldn't know where to begin

The factories can obviously afford that attitude... and frankly it doesn't surprise me.

Well, as long as people are buying "super reps" for $400 and more...

Someone's pockets are getting filled up with those kind of prices... I'm not suprised at that response Pix, factories are concerned with selling in volume, not necessarily making the highest quality product so that the consumers will be satisfied. In fact it's the opposite in some cases, "how can we make them the cheapest with the ability to sell?"

We only have ourselves to blame, people are obviously keeping the factories in business by buying their watches. I think that if this stopped or slowed down, the factories might be inclined to think about maximizing the quality of their watches rather than maximizing their bank accounts at the expense of quality.

That Ebel's my favourite, would look great on that classic wavy bracelet, looks very dressy on the leather strap however.

I've had an MB account now for just over 2 years, no problem so far. I much prefer them over bleedin' Paypal anyday.

Snowed throughout the morning here in North-West London, as much as b16a2's pictures show but its all melted now

I like snow but I dislike the infamous, miserable 'grey sky' weather the UK has a lot of

Thank you so much Francisco, I have been looking for a tutorial like this for ages, I now have somewhere to start when I will update the movements on my asian 21J reps.

BTW, does anyone know if the DG4813 @28,800 BPH will fit a Datejust?

I've always been put off the HBB because of the price. Even this is expensive for my taste but its considerably less than what other dealers are offering it for.

Regarding the issue about the markups. Come on guys, we all know these watches we buy have huge mark-ups. The costs of living in China are low, goods are very cheap there in comparison to Western prices... by a lot.

We've had members who have travelled there tell us what kind of prices they've picked up some pieces for, and even then they've paid a big mark-up on them too because the Chinese sellers spot immediately that a Westerner is buying, so they automatically put a mark-up on it, its the way business works there and other similar countries. People living in China on the other hand get the best prices, so the Chinese sellers make the most profits.

I've experienced the same thing in the 3 times I've travelled to India. The local population know my family is British Indian, they have almost a 6th sense and are able to spot it by the way we dress, talk etc. However I've got an aunt who lives there so everytime we go shopping, we go with her as so the retailers won't overcharge us.

Nice project, although I've never really warmed to the Explorer I, its still a classic.

I have to agree with Pugwash here, no matter how much we try to deny it, we ARE wearing fakes, theres no getting around it. I don't care if its a $30 Canal St sub or a MBW sub, they're both fakes, no one should try to kid themselves that their mbw rolex are real, or their DSN pams are real, they're not..

As many have pointed out here, there are all sorts of ways to get around it without telling a lie as such. Stick to confessing they're fake, or getting around it.

Just don't say that its real if someone asks, if you do you are a liar and if someone realises, they will only trust you to be a liar.

A couple of the best pieces of electronic music ever written on this album:

And another from a legend:

House fans will understand

mine should be here any day from eurotimez...

and it is all by-tor's fault

Same here! It will be the second rollie in my collection.

Go for whatever watch you like! I don't let big watches put me off, if I like them, I will get them. Right now I'm feeling some of the Breitlings, and I'm going to purchase one or two models, they're big watches, but I'm not going to let that put me off.

Fiddy's, PAMs in general, Breitlings, these were intentionally designed to be LARGE watches! Do you think an 8+ inch wrist is common? Even if you strapped a fiddy on a 8 inch wrist, its still going to have an awesome presence.

Well, at the obscene prices Patek charge, it better be less than .1% of the cases